Prosecutors on Tuesday dropped sexual assault charges against a former Norwich police officer accused of carrying on an intimate relationship with an underage girl in 2003.

Instead, 46-year-old Kenneth Nieves will be tried on three counts of risk of injury to a minor, Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Theresa Anne Ferryman said.

Nieves has pleaded not guilty. He’ll also go to trial in New London, after Superior Court Judge Arthur C. Hadden rejected a change of venue request Tuesday.

Ferryman said the statute of limitations under risk of injury charges is far longer than for second-degree sexual assault. Nieves allegedly had an intimate relationship with a 14-year-old girl from September 2003 through January 2005.

In August, Nieves rejected a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for a year and would have required him to be on the state’s sexual offender registry for 10 years.

Charles Tiernan III, Nieves’s lawyer, requested on Oct. 2 that the case be transferred “because his position as a police officer in the jurisdiction covered by this court prevents him from receiving a fair trial.”

Nieves asked for the case to be moved either to Middletown or New Haven, but Hadden said the voir dire process, in which prospective jurors are asked a series of questions to determine impartiality, would address those issues.

Tiernan couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Ferryman said one juror was selected, with the proceedings continuing today. Six jurors and two alternates will be chosen, and the trial is slated to begin Oct. 22 and run through Oct. 26.

Nieves, who was married at the time of his arrest, is now divorced. He resigned from the police department last October in the wake of an internal investigation that uncovered allegations of misconduct.

The probe claimed Nieves had sex with a woman in his police cruiser while on duty — assertions not related to what later became a state police investigation into the alleged conduct with the girl at the center of Nieves’ trial.

That girl, who is now 22 and a police officer, is expected to testify against Nieves.